MAX’s Return Delayed by FAA Reevaluation of 737 Safety Procedures

[ST Dog]

Originally Posted by groundbum

There must be loads of engineers and safety people at B that knew MCAS was a disaster in the making,

Big assumption, unsupported by evidence.

Complex systems where few understand it all, assumptions that others did things a certain way, stovepipes.

I doubt anyone really understood the danger.

[edmundronald]

Originally Posted by groundbum

I think we're debating a single pilot here as capitalism has a reputation for pushing dodgy stuff out the door to get a quick $$$. Especially in a safety related industry such as Aerospace there is only one safeguard that really really works when the system is putting out unsafe product - a low level employee that sees the danger and is willing to speak out. To my mind that is a lot of responsibility to put on one persons shoulder, a person who has a pension, mortgage, career, car loans, young family etc. And especially in a regulated system such as Aerospace it is negligent to operate in this way, Factory production lines have big red stop buttons that stop the whole line, why not something upstairs in the design and engineering offices when there is truly a unsafe situation developing. There must be loads of engineers and safety people at B that knew MCAS was a disaster in the making, I'm interested in why there wasn't some whistle-blowing hotline where these concerns could be brought up to an independent safety person.

G

There were lots of big red buttons already, FAA delegated engineers. A word in the ear of any of them shoulda stopped the train. If there is a safety issue, and the FAA engineer documents it, he doesn’t need to provide a source, after all it’s his job to find unresolved issues. Except the FAA guy himself would have lost his career by holding up a « too big to delay » project. The whole system is rotten.

It will be very interesting to watch the Europeans and the Chinese pile on the safety checks for a plane the FAA held,of grounding as long as they could.

Edmund

[Aihkio]

Some of the senior flight mechanics engineers knew, they knew the whole shebang. They are usually quite pragmatic too. One does not make waves, even in the Navy.

[groundbum]

Originally Posted by ST Dog

Big assumption, unsupported by evidence.

Complex systems where few understand it all, assumptions that others did things a certain way, stovepipes.

I doubt anyone really understood the danger.

then this is even more scary. Nothing like an aircraft should be built and put into service where the manufacturer does not understand themselves how it works, where the risks are, and how the risks are being managed. This is not a Lego project done at midnight for kindergarten class! Any large manufacturer should have layers and layers and layers of inspection and review of design and safety and manufacture, within safety systems, at every level. B stress their proud heritage of building safe aircraft when selling their wares, looks like it was smoke and mirrors.

Any half decent engineer working on this, and looking at the reliance on one AOA vane, a part frequently bashed on the ground or by birds, would know the design is flawed. The Turkish crash at AMS proved how one sensor is never a good idea. Never mind moving a primary control surface just so it could provide feedback to the yoke, just because the bits and pieces were already there. MCAS was not dropped in one night by a guy with a lightbulb moment. Hundreds of highly skilled experienced people would have been in on it. Why did not one man/woman speak up?

G

[Aihkio]

I think it all comes down to the safety culture at the moment MCAS was finally realized. It does not come out as convincingly positive.

Of course there is the possibility that some bean counter at some point ordered how to do it. Without signing anything or taking any responsibility.

[MurphyWasRight]

[QUOTE=groundbum;10565914
<< valid points >>
...
Hundreds of highly skilled experienced people would have been in on it. Why did not one man/woman speak up?

G[/QUOTE]
A few possibilities, not of course mutually exclusive:

A: One or more did but their concerns were brushed aside and they did not feel they could safely escalate. This brushing aside is more likely if they were 'observers from the side' rather than in the direct engineering flow.
I often find that someone not in the thick of things is more likely to notice something apparently obvious.

B: Lack of full global context, each part can appear to be specified/working correctly if viewed narrowly. This is a counterintuitive possible result of very detailed specifications that focuses on what/how and omit why.

C: The 'boiled frog' : Incremental small (and in this case some not so small) changes can be hard to track and the end result can have problems that are missed that would be obvious on a clean slate analysis.

D: Normalization of deviance: (See Nasa, either shuttle disaster) In this case it could be "Well STS has been working well, this is just a small addition to STS", missing the question of whether STS was a good idea in first place. (I have nowhere near enough knowledge to have an opinion on that)

Combine any/all of the above with outright top level pressure to get this out the door and the result is what we have seen. It will be very interesting to see what becomes public of any legal discovery actions, would not be surprised if internal warnings (item A) come to light.

[Longtimer]

ANALYSIS: EASA concerns show scale of Max challenge

• 
• 09 September, 2019

• SOURCE: FlightGlobal.com
• BY: Lewis Harper
• London

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...llenge-460726/

[Speed of Sound]

Originally Posted by Longtimer

ANALYSIS: EASA concerns show scale of Max challenge

• 
• 09 September, 2019

• SOURCE: FlightGlobal.com
• BY: Lewis Harper
• London

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...llenge-460726/

Very interesting!

Any chance of outlining what that article says?

[Smythe]

Hundreds of highly skilled experienced people would have been in on it. Why did not one man/woman speak up?

First off, you need to spend some time at Boeing. Look at the news articles going back 10 to 15 years, and the recent ones. Boeing has done voluntary payouts of those experienced people, or laid off thousands.
In the last few years, early outs and layoffs were focused on the engineering staff, and most recently, the inspectors.

Not sure if Boeing has any engineers left with more than 5 years of experience.
Everything has been outsourced. The engineering is done in pieces, you work on a small piece, but only a few review the whole.
Software is outsourced to Boeing India in Bangalore.

Technical pilots are not test pilots per se. Most tech pilots at Boeing have no experience, and have been hired straight out of UND. Virtually none have ever flown a flight with pax, all flight time in sim, getting more types.

Now, does how the MAX was self certified with all of the errors make more sense?


EDIT: on a side note, the new Chief Technical Pilot for Boeing was at Ryanair for 11 years. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pagustavsson

[Longtimer]

The forum moderators tell me that I can not publish copy written material so just follow the link.

[OldnGrounded]

Originally Posted by Longtimer

The forum moderators tell me that I can not publish copy written material so just follow the link.

The link is to a paywalled site and not everyone here is a subscriber to that periodical. So, if you want that article to be discussed, please summarize the relevant points.

[LandIT]

Originally Posted by OldnGrounded

The link is to a paywalled site and not everyone here is a subscriber to that periodical. So, if you want that article to be discussed, please summarize the relevant points.

I often find a search with some quoted statement finds other sites with similar reporting. For example link below is a site that does not seem to be paywalled and the link should go to an article that contains much the same information as the Flightglobal one. I've read both and here is a summary of some key items of interest to me.... Apparently EASA determined some 70 test points in May. Boeing are responding and have been working on many aspects as reported in this forum already. EASA certainly raised something people in this forum suspected might be more difficult - the trim wheel loads under certain circumstances. Also something they called Angle of Attack integrity issues. EASA proposes to do its own recertification and comments that the relationship between international certification authorities and the FAA may be forever changed - may want a second or different opinion.

https://simpleflying.com/easa-737-max-test/

[Chris2303]

Originally Posted by OldnGrounded

The link is to a paywalled site and not everyone here is a subscriber to that periodical. So, if you want that article to be discussed, please summarize the relevant points.

And when I tried the free registration link the site just froze.

A precis will do thanks

[Mariner]

Article in FlightGlobal:

Originally Posted by OldnGrounded

The link is to a paywalled site and not everyone here is a subscriber to that periodical. So, if you want that article to be discussed, please summarize the relevant points.

Here's the article:
ANALYSIS: EASA concerns show scale of Max challenge

• 09 SEPTEMBER, 2019
• SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM
• BY: LEWIS HARPER
• LONDON

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has outlined that there is "still a lot of work that needs to be performed" before it can clear the Boeing 737 Max to return to service.



Speaking during a session of the European Parliament's Transport and Tourism Committee on 3 September, EASA's executive director Patrick Ky confirmed that EASA would make its own judgement on whether the Max is ready to fly again, and that it is still awaiting satisfactory answers about safety-critical parts not limited to the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS).

Although progress has been made since EASA raised those concerns with Boeing and the FAA in July, "there are aspects on which we're happy with the solutions which are proposed by Boeing, others on which we need to discuss more, and others on which there is still a lot of work that needs to be performed", Ky explains in Brussels.

EASA's review extends far beyond MCAS, also touching on concerns related to pilot procedures, crew workload, display and alerting systems, and the ability of pilots to use manual aircraft trim during extreme manoeuvres.

The significance of EASA's safety pronouncements goes beyond Europe. As Ky notes, many national agencies are likely to await a "second opinion" before clearing the Max for service amid questions over the FAA's certification processes.

Much uncertainty swirls around approval, for example, of the Max by China – a country now embattled in a broader trade dispute with the USA.

[Speed of Sound]

"We will perform flight tests when all of those activities have been successfully finished, and from those flights tests, we will be able to define crew training requirements." EASA

It will be interesting to see who EASA recruit for their flight testing and whether they use 737 without MAX experience, unlike the FAA. I would say that if they are looking at crew training to convert to the MAX they should only conduct flight tests with pilots with no previous experience of the MAX.

[krismiler]

I would think that EASA would use their own test pilots to determine if the aircraft was safe to return to service and their input would be sought as to the training required for pilots converting onto the type. For any fix from Boeing to be acceptable it's certain to require the pilots to have detailed understanding and specific training regarding the handling characteristics and systems used to protect the aircraft. Previously pilots weren't told of the tendency for the nose to pitch up or the system installed to correct for it. All possible failure cases will need to be provided for with specific procedures and warnings.

Because of the two disasters, any solution will have to go beyond what would normally be considered acceptable for a variation of a current model, and may well require the MAX to be treated as a new aircraft requiring a separate type rating .

[jimjim1]

You can cut out the middleman and see the full Powerpoint Presentation. Of course I guess the powerpoint will have been expanded on - quite likely that this has been recorded in some way somewhere public.


Presentation to European Parliament by the Executive Director of EASA
3 Sept 2019

slide 2 - Scope of competences
3 - Mission and tasks
4, 5 - Strategic Priorities in the next 5 years
7-16 - 737 MAX

A LOT of attention on the MAX.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsda...y-original.pdf

[cappt]

Putting it through a complete flight test program could take a year or more realistically. Euro airlines should be looking for alternative aircraft.

[Fly Aiprt]

Originally Posted by cappt

Putting it through a complete flight test program could take a year or more realistically. Euro airlines should be looking for alternative aircraft.

What in the world have they been doing during those alleged hundreds of test flights since the grounding ?

[jimjim1]

Originally Posted by cappt

Putting it through a complete flight test program could take a year or more realistically. Euro airlines should be looking for alternative aircraft.

A one week flight test program is mentioned.

The last slide in the document contains:-

Flight tests on a modified B737 max [one full week - at Boeing Flight Test Center]
- MCAS operations (nominal behavior)
- Flight without MCAS (including high speed turns and stall)
- Scenario of stabiliser runaway (uncommanded MCAS activation, manual trim wheel forces)
- Approach to stall with autopilot engaged